Take Two with Colin Drury

With less than a fortnight to go you can’t blame Sheffield City Council for looking forward to the new Moor Market. But one wonders if cabinet member Leigh Bramall might be getting carried away.

The new entrance, he tweets, is “like a cathedral”.

Either he’s over-excited or he’s prayed in some very unusual churches.

MOOR OPENING HOURS, PLEASE

Not to be a doomsayer ahead of that first day but one can’t help wonder if an opportunity has rather been missed.

Opening hours at the new market will be 8.30am-5.30pm, Monday to Saturday.

Why so short?

We live in an age when, for the first time in generations, an increasing number of shoppers positively want to buy fresh and local. Supermarkets are unloved. Customers care where their food comes from. Which surely means Sheffield’s biggest market - rammed with great butchers, bakers and grocers - has a real opportunity to attract even more people than ever.

But don’t we also live in an age when shoppers demand convenience? And doesn’t convenience mean being able to food shop before work, after work and all through the weekend?

So shouldn’t the new market be doing all it can to entice these people? And shouldn’t that mean earlier starts, later finishes and some Sunday hours for unit-holders who want to open longer than traditional trading times?

Just look at Simmonite, in Division Street, the first family butchers to open in S1 for more than a decade. It’s doing booming business by accommodating more people’s needs. Perhaps the market could learn a lesson from its success.